NaNoWriMo Launch
Today is the first day of National Novel Writing Month: NaNoWriMo for short. This is my second year of signing up for this event which boasts 125,000 participant writers from around the world. In my little corner of the world, I’ve located 6 other WriMos, and we are meeting at local Starbucks this afternoon for a Write-In as well as weekly for the rest of the month.
The purpose of the event is to complete 50,000 words of a “shitty first draft.” This quote is directly from Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird and is particularly fitting to the contest’s intention. Chris Baty, who initiated the event in 1999 with 26 friends, is the first to say that the intention is not to write beautiful, lyrical, quotable prose. The goal is simply to give one’s imagination full rein until there are 50,000 words on the page.
I have to admit last year’s NaNoWriMo was a thrilling exercise in freedom for me. I wrote the worst mystery novel ever, but I discovered so many facets of my imagination in the process and so much about my ability to do concentrated work in a myriad of settings and under all kinds of conditions. WOW!
Of course, I signed up again. I leaped from bed this morning, not early but nevertheless excited to start work on my new book. I filled my new NaNoWriMo mug with coffee (unused until this day), donned my blue chiffon porpoise-print writing jacket, opened a word doc, and typed the title of my book: The Right Sisters.
I’m off and running with 700 words! I’ll meet with my fellow WriMos this afternoon at Starbucks where we will down caffeine and write for 2 or more hours.
Are any of you, dear readers, participating? Please speak up! In the mean time, I’ll post periodic NaNoWriMo updates along with more thoughts on point of view over the next few weeks.
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